Photo by Pang Lun Peng
“I thought this shirt was made of cotton, so it’s really surprising to find out today that it’s made from recycled plastic bottles!”
This little known fact came as a surprise to Marturu, who was clad in DA.AI Technology’s signature light green polo shirt. A production engineer with AZTECH Heat Exchangers Pte. Ltd, Marturu was among the company’s employees who participated in a Tzu Chi event aimed at sharing the benefits of vegetarianism and environmental protection. The event, which was held on 27th April 2017, was the first of its kind held in the company’s premises.
“I am not a vegetarian, but I will start to eat less meat.”
After viewing a video about cruelty in the livestock industry, Marturu, who hails from India, decided to try and eat less meat to do his part to protect life, while at the same time making a positive contribution in keeping the earth a beautiful, living planet.
AZTECH Heat Exchangers’ managing director, Mr James Lim Jenn Yih, had specially invited Tzu Chi Foundation (Singapore) to organize this event, which served to instill in the staff the importance of environmental conservation and how vegetarianism could help reduce carbon footprint. In order to meet the needs of close to 60 employees of various races and nationalities, including Bangladesh, India, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, etc., English and Mandarin sessions were conducted for the respective English or Mandarin-speaking employees.
Photo by Pang Lun Peng
Perhaps many people do not know that used plastic bottles can be “recycled” into beautiful polo shirts. As such, James Lim made a bulk purchase of one hundred such shirts and gave them to his employees. At the same time, the staff attended a practical lesson on how discarded plastic bottles could be turned into something beautiful and useful, such as the comfortable polo shirts they were wearing.
Photo by Pang Lun Peng
Hence, on this day, every single AZTECH employee turned “green” as they wore the light green DA.AI Technology polo shirts to work. They attended a sharing session where Tzu Chi’s senior volunteer, Khoo Jyh Hao, shared the urgency of environmental protection today, in light of the harmful effects of global warming and climate change. There were also various other presentations on how man’s destructive habits have caused irreparable damage to Mother Earth.
Photo by Pang Lun Peng
In his talk, Khoo posed a very direct question to the employees seated in the room: “Does mankind need Nature or is it Nature that needs mankind?”
Actually most of the employees knew clearly in their hearts that it is mankind that needs Mother Nature to survive as a species. Thus Khoo took this opportunity to drive home the point that vegetarianism is one of the most effective ways to curtail the damaging effects of global warming. He encouraged everyone in the room: “Let vegetarianism grow on you!”
Photo by Pang Lun Peng
Lim’s wife, Mdm Li Yi (pictured above), shared that the company has always been a strong proponent of environmental management in many areas of its business. The office’s staff adopt the practice of printing on both sides of the paper, collect used paper for recycling, etc. Outside the production plant, there is even a small warehouse purpose-built for the storage of materials for recycling, such as newspapers, carton boxes, plastics, metal cans, etc. If one walks a bit further, one can see brightly marked recycling bins, which are used to collect various types of metallic waste, such as white steel, stainless steel, copper, etc.
Mdm Li Yi expressed her hope that the day’s lesson in environmental protection would encourage more staff to adopt green practices. She said that with the staff’s simple daily examples, they would be able to create a positive cycle that would influence their family members and friends to follow such eco-friendly practices, too.
Photo by Pang Lun Peng
Photo by Pang Lun Peng
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